via USNI News.
The biggest legislative win for the Navy was partial funding for additional EA-18G Growlers the Navy had put on its unfunded requirements list.Wow.
The subcommittee elected to include 12 Growlers out of the 22 the Navy requested in its mark of the bill at $975 million.
Growlers are integral to the service’s emerging Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) which blend sensors and weapons into a new construct for fighting a carrier strike group (CSG).
Lets see. You start off behind the power curve, but you get it together quickly. Instead of balling up into a corner and "accepting" your fate you decide to fight back.
You start a website and get the military community talking about your product.
You get serious about lobbying members of congress.
You start doing a hardcore comparison between what your product brings to the table and what your competitor hopes (after more than a decade of development) to deliver.
And finally you do it at a price your customer can afford in these times of sequestration.
Boeing learned the game and they're fighting back. Why do I have a pic of the Advanced Super Hornet for a story about Growlers? Because I'd bet body parts that I highly value that this is only the beginning. Boeing will be back with the ASH as a cheap and affordable upgrade to keep those maintenance friendly, high availability, great bomb truck, network communications node airplanes.. competitive into the future.
